Q: Assuming that the 12-3 Broncos can get past the 2-13 Chiefs in Week 17, the Broncos will match the 2005 team’s regular-season record of 13-3 and approach the team’s best of 14-2, recorded in 1998. This achievement thus begs the question — just how good are the 2012 Broncos and how do they compare to the 1998 and 2005 Denver teams? … Funny, but the 2005 Broncos, though more recent, are a bit more vaguely remembered than the Super Bowl team of 1998. The outstanding memory is just how good Jake Plummer really was. He was underrated at the time and remains so today. Your thoughts?

A: Dan, the answer is still out there, so to speak.

Objectively, the 1998 Broncos team stands alone in the franchise’s history because it included two Hall of Famers (John Elway and Shannon Sharpe) on an offense that also included Terrell Davis (who has made the list of 25 semifinalists for the Hall several times), Rod Smith, Ed McCaffrey and Tom Nalen. Defensively, the team included Neil Smith, Bill Romanowski and Steve Atwater — Atwater made the Hall of Fame’s list of 25 semfinalists for the Class of ’13.

The team won its second consecutive Super Bowl that year and concluded a three-year run when it won 39 regular-season games. The ’98 team also set the franchise’s single-season scoring record (501 points) as Davis won the league’s MVP award and the Offensive Player of the Year award.

And championships always tip the scales. Teams that win a Super Bowl have had a great season, sometimes even a historical season. Great teams, teams for the ages, however, win multiple Super Bowls.

This team’s story isn’t written yet. They are still in the first year of whatever becomes of the Peyton Manning era.

The most intriguing part of it all, other than a future Hall of Famer in Manning arriving in free agency, is no less than Joe Collier. The longtime Broncos defensive coordinator, including in the Orange Crush years, said this year’s defense has a chance to be the franchise’s best and gives the team, with Manning behind center, the chance to do “special things” over a multi-year period.

Von Miller is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate and should be in each of the next several seasons if he maintains his desire to improve. The Broncos are also the only team in the league with two players among the league’s top 10 in sacks in Miller and Elvis Dumervil.

And they have a future Hall of Famer in Champ Bailey at cornerback.

The key to it all will be Manning’s health and Elway’s willingness/desire to be engaged running the team’s football operations over the long haul in an effort to maintain a roster with youth and athleticism around Manning and select other veterans. Another key will be keeping some continuity on the coaching staff, particularly at defensive coordinator where the Broncos are on their seventh person in the job over the last seven seasons.

More than one team with a quality season or two in their pockets has been undone by an aging of the roster, poor performance in the draft and the natural exhale that comes with winning one title – it’s the goal of every player, coach or team official. And it is hard to reset after winning one. Or, for that matter, as has been the case in the modern era, after losing a Super Bowl as well.

In terms of the ’05 team, it is underappreciated a bit with one of the most underappreciated players in the franchise’s history leading the way. Plummer was 39-13 as a Broncos starter (.750), and the Broncos were 7-4 in 2006 when he was benched in favor of Jay Cutler.

Plummer set a franchise record of 229 pass attempts without an interception during the 2005 season. His 4,089 yards passing in ’04 is still the third-highest in team history after Jay Cutler’s 4,526 yards in ’08 and Manning’s 4,355 yards this season.

The ’05 team had the table set for a Super Bowl trip. After Manning’s Colts were beaten in Indianapolis by the Steelers, the Broncos had the AFC championship game at home, but turned in their poorest effort in what had been a remember-when season until that point.

The Steelers went on to win a mistake-filled Super Bowl over the Seahawks, a game most personnel people believed the Broncos would have won handily had they reached the title game. It will always remain one of the biggest lost opportunities the franchise has ever had as it then went on to miss the playoffs in ’06, ’07, ’08, ’09 and ’10 before making the field last year as an 8-8 division winner.

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